


pollute to purify

by iridescentrey



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: 1984
Genre: Dark Brooke, F/M, Murder, Stalking, it'll most likely sink but we're gonna have fun while it does, my homies call this ship brick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 04:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentrey/pseuds/iridescentrey
Summary: She’s used to holding back. He isn’t.He’s been waiting so long to see her like this, letting herself be free, unrestrained. It takes a conscious effort to stay still, to watch from afar and relish in it.





	pollute to purify

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Murder happens. The descriptions aren't extremely graphic, but be careful if you're sensitive to that. There are mentions of stalking.  
(And please, nobody come at me, I'm writing about the fictional character portrayed by Zach Villa, not the actual real-life person.)
> 
> I've been trying to write and publish something since February, I've written parts of countless fics and never finished them. I've annoyed countless friends with my talk of fanfic with no actual publications. This thing, I started today at 3 pm, it's midnight. I'm on a roll. Murder roll. ENJOY.

She’s completely lost and he begins to slip, too. It’s too easy, effortless, just like it was to give in and let himself follow the gravity of _her_. Ruby red stains her palms like the ripest pomegranates, splatters the bright fabric of her clothes, her skin.

She’s used to holding back. He isn’t.

He’s been waiting so long to see her like this, letting herself be _free_, unrestrained. It takes a conscious effort to stay still, to watch from afar and relish in it. To stall a little bit longer before approaching and inevitably dragging her back to reality, to where she’ll be reminded of her nonsensical need to hide. To deny herself what she’s always needed. He holds back, for her. No matter how much he wants to brush his fingers through the abstract patterns painted on her skin.

It hardly registers whose body it is Brooke is straddling, bloodied features hazy in the shadows filling the cabin. Sand-colored fabric barely resembles itself at its prime, covered in darkening stains and tearing so, so easily under the assault of her blade. _His_ blade.

He had offered it to her earlier that night, her dark eyes filled with suspicion, his filled with hope, raw and uncovered. That she’ll open up and let it all out, as if he had cut it out of her himself.

Now, finally, it spills.

Hooked blade digs into Margaret’s flesh as if it were butter, time and time again. Crimson bubbles up the surface. Something elusive swells up in his chest and he wonders why he ever thought he needed to settle on the second-best.

With the best prize right under his nose, just waiting to bloom.

She’s the only lucent thing in the darkness, unhinged as a wildfire. He’s set alight, too. “I knew you had it in you.”

She lets the knife tumble to the floor, breaths deep, lungs filled with smoke.

It might hurt, he knows. It might suffocate you, too, but only if you struggle. If you let them, the ashes will keep you warm.

He wants to show her. Wants to make her see just how warm they could keep both of them. Coals burn brighter in his chest with every step, soles of his boots stick to the blood-covered floorboards.

“I-” Words incandescent, the fire has taken them all. Like a spooked animal caught in the headlights, she’s frozen when he approaches, motionless but for the shivers that shake her limbs.

“I know.”

She lets him crouch next to her, take in every detail of the mosaic splattered on her pearl-pale skin. Smile soft, words even softer, to make her believe he will help her douse the fire before she sees it’s the exact opposite of what she needs.

“I had to, I’m-” She stutters out, tear tracks adding their own strokes to the artwork on her skin. Eyes glossed over, whites red, red, red. He needs her to see the beauty of it. “She was going to- She’d kill us all if I didn’t.”

“Exactly,” he coos. “See? You had a reason, a good reason.” He reaches out, slow, so slow. Just to tuck a stray strand of her chocolate brown hair behind her ear, brush against her skin. Sparks come to life and burn him, he doesn’t resist. “Why feel bad about it, then?”

She chokes out a sob, ache spills out like blood. He moves his hand lower, to her jaw, to the nape of her neck; tries to ground her in the flames. Margaret's body already grows stiff beneath her, glasses broken, limbs mangled like a puppet she had tried to make of everyone else. “She was a human being.” Voice frail, shattered, her gaze clinging onto his for dear life; anything to keep her eyes off of the mess she's made.

“A vile one.”

He knows what's on the tip of her tongue. Barely ajar, she's open enough to let him peek through, not quite enough to let him in. Not yet.

_Aren't we, too? Don't we deserve the same fate?_ Maybe. But he prefers to look at it differently. 

It means they have nothing to lose.

She lets out a shaky breath, tinged with copper and so, so sweet in his lungs. It would be so easy to move closer, to taste her skin, taste the salty tang of her tears. She wrenches herself out of his grasp before he moves as much as an inch, he swallows through a twinge of disappointment. Legs shaky, hands held in front of her, fingers stiff and curled like claws, separate from her. She’s already doing it; trying to run, to make herself forget. This time, he won’t let her.

“I should get cleaned up before anyone comes here.” Sobs break her words again. She steps over Margaret’s corpse, careful to avoid the broken glass blanketing the floor. Her gaze already repels his own like a magnet turned to the wrong side; red-white sneakers leave a trail marking her path and it’s all his gaze can follow. Back turned to him, she picks up one of the discarded ascots, tries to wipe the stains from her shaking arms.

He frowns. There’s no need for that and she knows it. To any bystanders, what happened would be clear as day. She’d fool everyone, again.

He pick the knife back up, handle sticks to the skin of his palm; droplets of blood fall onto the lenses of Margaret’s glasses. “You said nobody ever believes you.” Her frantic movements come to a halt. “That’s not true. They believe you too easily.”

Her back tenses, stiff like a stone, it locks the embers in. She turns around, glossy eyes still cast down; they only meet his in short glances. “Why would you say that?” A small step backward, spark avoids gasoline. There’s only so far she can run.

“Look around you.” He spreads his arms out, handle of the knife locked tightly in his grip, hands stained with blood. She curls in on herself as he approaches, he doesn’t stop. Only so far she can curl back into her shell before it bursts. “You wouldn’t even have to explain yourself. Nobody would ever consider you as a suspect.” A laugh breaks out of his chest, he doesn’t fight it. It only ever seems to bloom when she’s around. It’s been so long since he truly laughed. Has he, ever, without her around? “It’s genius,” he whispers.

“I wouldn’t tell them it’s you, I swear.” She ignores his point again, pushes it away and makes it elude her; one step away from convincing herself it was him all along.

He corners her against the wall. “You don’t have to keep lying to yourself, Brooke.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

A split second, the blade digs into the wood, millimeters away from her head. She cries out in shock, tries to wrench herself away, to escape back inside herself again. He holds her against the wall, fingers digging into her collarbone, her neck. Just enough to keep her steady. “Why do you think I broke into your apartment?”

“Please-”

“Why?” Face open and raw before her, she still refuses to look. He needs her to see.

“Because-” She stutters out, another stifled sob. “Because you wanted to kill me. That's what you do.”

He huffs, shortens the distance between them as slow as he knows how to. A short peck on the heated skin of her forehead, enough to make the taste of copper and salt bloom on his tongue. Enough to make the flames lick on his skin from beneath. “Do you really think you’d walk out of there alive if that’s what I meant to do with you?”

Sharp pain jolts through his shoulder before he manages to savor the moment, he stumbles backward. His knife in one hand, the other locked into a fist, a mix of contempt and rage twisting her features. And pain, deep and unbridled. “Was I too much of a hustle, then?”

He frowns. “What?” She advances on him and he yields, hand wandering to the place where his blade hit. It had sliced through the leather of his jacket, dug deep enough to paint his palm with a new coat of red. He lifts them both up when she doesn't stop. “I just wanted to see for myself.”

“See what?” Embers glow behind the black of her eyes, pupils wide enough to swallow any color. A lioness. She cracks, tears still flowing freely from her eyes. All he has to do is coax the cracks open.

“What you kept looking at. Every evening.” She comes to a stop in front of him, still but for the steady movement of her chest. “I watched you. Through the window. The more I watched, the more it looked like a ring.” He’s so close, so close to making her admit. Making her see how easy it could be. “I had to see if it was the same one.” She backs him up against the wall, a mirror of their earlier position. “The same one I saw in the newspaper clip.”

“Of course I kept it,” she whispers, voice hoarse from the sobs. “I loved him.”

“I just found it peculiar, you know. That you kept reminiscing about someone who took two people you cared for away from you. Someone who made your life hell.” A step forward, a risk. The blade looms on the level of his stomach. “Unless it’s not a keepsake.” One well-aimed slash would be enough. “It’s a trophy.”

One hand still clenched around the handle, the other covering her mouth. She smears the blood on her cheeks, her jaw. “I didn’t-”

“I don’t know if you expected him to do what he did.” He reaches out, fingers brush against her cold, frail ones. They seem even colder against her fire. “But you were grateful. He made it easier for you.” He pries the blade away from her grasp and she lets him, the last piece holding her upright is gone and she crumbles, folds in on herself. 

She slides to the floor when he walks away to grab one of the pristine cloth towels hung by the sink, doesn’t budge when he kneels next to her. Still like a ragdoll, she lets him wipe her hands clean with the dampened fabric; red still clings to the tips of her manicured nails. “He didn’t shoot himself, did he?” He wipes the smudged tears off of her cheeks, the new ones keep coming. “Look at me.” She does, lips pressed together, brow furrowed. Fingers under her chin, he won’t let her fall again. “Did he?”

Barely noticeable, she shakes her head.

“The others?”

Another shake.

The flames are contagious. They lick at his skin, muscles; they dig in, bones-deep. They fill in the cavity of his chest and make it seem like it hasn't always been empty. He fights the smile from crawling back on his face again.

“I couldn’t tell anyone.” Her voice breaks, brittle and burned. “There was nobody.”

His hand settles in on her back. “I know.” The words feel thin, shallow in comparison to her pain. Not enough comfort. He’s never known that language but for a few words.

“I wanted to forget.”

“I know.” There's only so much he can offer; help her bear the flames, turn into ash, scatter where she tells him to.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“No,” he scoffs. “I don’t care why.” Her breath hiccups; he’s a child again, unsure what to say, how to make it better. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. If you want to. But any reason is good enough for me.”

She blinks away the tears and nods, lashes wet, lips red and swollen from crying. He brushes his palm against her mussed hair, just for a second. She doesn’t flinch away.

His fingers brush the last smear of blood on her chin away, the exact opposite of what he craves. Opposite of what he can settle on, for now.

He imagines her drenched in red, rivulets running down her chest, her stomach, her breasts; eyes slipped shut, faint smile painted on her lips. Her hands on him, holding his pieces together as they fall apart into embers. He'd hold her too. He'd learn how to tell her she's not alone.

It wouldn't take much at all to ignite the flames, her lips emery, his sulfur of the match. He makes them meet just to see if they'll both burst.


End file.
